‘We’ve been stripped of everything we’ve built,’ Emerys say
The business empire built by B.C.’s “Prince and Princess of Pot” is on the verge of collapse.
Marc and Jodie Emery have been ordered to cease operating their Cannabis Culture dispensary business after they were arrested Wednesday at a Toronto airport, Jodie said Saturday in a phone interview.
Emery said they were taken into custody by plainclothes officers as they got out of an Uber vehicle and were later strip-searched. She described their treatment by police as “disturbing and shocking” and said they were only permitted to speak with lawyers hours after the arrest.
“We’ve literally been stripped naked in the strip search and stripped of everything we’ve built, everything we’ve worked so hard for all these years,” Emery said.
The following day, police in Toronto, Hamilton, Ont. and Vancouver executed 11 search warrants, while three of the Emerys’ associates in Cannabis Culture were also arrested.
The five defendants were charged Thursday with a range of counts, including drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.
At a bail hearing Friday, the five defendants were represented by Toronto lawyers Jack Lloyd and Dan Stein. All five were released on bail that afternoon with conditions, Lloyd said when reached by phone in Toronto. They are set to appear in court the morning of April 21, he said.
Emery described the conditions handed to her and her husband as “onerous.” The Vancouver couple are now required to stay in Ontario, though Jodie may visit her home city with court permission, she said.
They have been banned from entering any Cannabis Culture location or office, including the B.C. Marijuana Party and Cannabis Culture magazine headquarters in Vancouver, and Emery can’t speak with staff or deal with business operations in any way, she said.
The couple have been given two weeks to remove themselves from any bank accounts associated with the business.
“It’s utterly heartbreaking, really,” Emery said. “My entire adult life has been 100 per cent dedicated to Cannabis Culture and our mission for legalization and cannabis for freedom.”
The Emerys, longtime staples of B.C.’s pot advocacy scene, own the Cannabis Culture brand. It has been used by a chain of marijuana dispensaries in B.C., Ontario and Quebec that has expanded over the last two years.
Although Canada’s Liberal government has said it plans to introduce legislation later this year to legalize non-medicinal marijuana sales and use, pot dispensaries remain illegal under federal law.
Emery said she believes they were targeted for their longtime activism and civil disobedience, and believes Toronto police, who co-ordinated last week’s “Project Gator,” may have been exacting revenge after charges were dropped against employees arrested during the “Project Claudia” raids in Toronto last May.
“I feel fair to say this is a political persecution and the police and the government are looking at preventing us from being able to exercise our right to be active and to run businesses,” she said.
Emery said the couple will speak on Monday with lawyers, who have advised them not to discuss specifics around charges and allegations made against them.
We’ve literally been stripped naked in the strip search and stripped of everything we’ve built …